


All the walls were melting (And there were mermaids everywhere)

by Veriatas



Series: What the Water Gave Me (Selkie'verse) [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Mer!Stephanie Brown, Selkie!Bruce Wayne, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veriatas/pseuds/Veriatas
Summary: It was early in the morning, sun just beginning to peek over the horizon. The perfect time for Tim to go for a swim and have the ocean all to himself.Or maybe not.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: What the Water Gave Me (Selkie'verse) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781317
Comments: 46
Kudos: 299





	All the walls were melting (And there were mermaids everywhere)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Bumpkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumpkin) for their help, and to my beta [Fire and Phoenix!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireandphoenix/pseuds/fireandphoenix)

Tim stepped out of the house on quiet feet. It was early in the morning; far too early for anyone else in the house to be awake. He couldn’t settle, couldn’t sleep. Maybe the ocean would soothe his restless mind. There was a certain kind of peace that could be found in watching the crashing of the waves. But there was more peace to be found under the water, with all his worries left behind on the shore. 

He made his way down to the beach below the Wayne house - his house now too, wasn’t that still strange - and tucked his towel securely into the rocks. He didn’t want it to blow away. 

The first rays of the sun rose over the horizon as Tim stepped into the water. He paused for a moment just to stare. He wasn’t sure he could think of anything more beautiful than the sunrise over the ocean, orange rays bringing warmth to his skin. He paused for one more moment, then he looked away to check his gear.

He was wearing his wetsuit, because his charm might protect him from the chill of the water but the wetsuit was still the most practical thing for swimming. His charm was on his wrist; he never took it off. The tracking bracelet Bruce had asked him to wear was on his other wrist. Looking at it gave him a pang of guilt. If Bruce or Dick or Jay woke up before he got back, they’d be so worried. But that wasn’t enough to stop Tim from going out. He needed some space for himself, needed to think and grieve and wonder without them being able to hear.

Last, but certainly not least, he checked that his scuba knife was securely strapped to his leg. Jason had come home with it a few days after they first went swimming together, had pressed into Tim’s hands and made him promise never to swim without it. Jay hadn’t said anything more to Tim, had just shaken his head with distant eyes and his lips pressed into a thin line. There was a story behind that expression, Tim knew. It was that thought that had him double checking for the knife every time he went out, although he still didn’t know why he really needed it.

All his preparation and checking done, Tim waded until the water was up to his ribs. Then he took one last deep reflexive breath of air and ducked beneath the waves. 

The world looked so different underwater. Everything was consumed by varying shades of blue, from sunlight waters near the surface of the ocean to the inky depths in the distance. Tim couldn’t help but shiver as he looked out towards the dark shadows of the deeper waters. He knew that if he got swept out there, he wouldn’t stand a chance, not by himself. He touched his wrist just to make sure that his tracker was still there, nerves making him doubt his own memory. Worries assuaged, he decided he would stick close to the cliffs for this swim. Much safer to swim near the shore than to venture deeper.

With that goal in mind, he turned towards the bluffs. They weren’t far away, and he could just barely make out some of the larger shelves that broke up the cliff face. He thought that maybe he’d go sit on one, and spend half an hour just gazing out at the ocean. If he sat still for a while, the fish would get less nervous and he’d be able to watch them, which was always soothing. 

And best of all, he would be alone. 

He loved Dick and Jay, he really did. They’d so easily brought him into their family. But unlike Bruce, they weren’t very good at giving him space. Tim felt a bit like he was drowning in their constant companionship, left desperately wanting some time to breathe. He snorted to himself. He was escaping the flood of affection and getting some air… by going underwater. Maybe he needed to rethink his metaphors.

Finally drawing close to his destination, Tim pulled himself out of his own thoughts and immediately scolded himself. He couldn’t get distracted like that while swimming alone. It was dangerous. 

He took a more careful look at his surroundings, not expecting to see anything unusual this close to shore, this close to the Wayne house. But his expectations were dead wrong. 

There was someone lying on the big shelf in the cliff. And they had a _tail._

From the upper half, the person seemed fairly normal. But from the waist down, they looked nothing like Tim had ever seen before. The tail was close to five feet in length, by Tim’s guess, and it was covered in scales of deep purple, almost the colour of an eggplant. Flowing out from the sides of the tail, and at the end, were large, almost delicate looking fins which faded from the eggplant purple into a lighter shade, closer to amethyst. Tim was almost so shocked by having the existence of a _merperson_ confirmed for him, that he almost missed something else that was very obvious about the person.

They were completely tangled in fishing line.

A massive net was wrapped around them, tangling their arms to their sides, pinning the top parts of those delicate looking fins to their tail. As Tim watched, they began to thrash again, twisting struggling in an attempt to escape. The water around them churned, and Tim drew back a bit despite the distance between them, afraid of what that powerful looking tail could do. As he did, he instinctively put a hand on his dive knife. Half a second later, his mind caught up to his body and his eyes widened.

He had a dive knife. He could cut them free. Suddenly, the story Tim had glimpsed in Jason's haunted eyes as he'd given Tim the knife became a lot more clear.

Just as he had that realisation, the merperson stopped thrashing again and slumped back onto the rock of the shelf. Maybe Tim was projecting, but they seemed… exhausted. Defeated. And even if he was scared of being hurt by that thrashing tail, he knew he could help them. He took a reflexive deep breath, the strange magic of his charm keeping him safe, and swam closer to the cliff shelf the merperson was on.

“Hello?” he called softly as he reached the edge of the shelf. The word was strangely muffled by the water, but the merperson looked up at the sound and saw him. Tim got a glimpse of violet blue eyes, widening in shock, before they twisted themself back off the rock and used their tail to propel them away from Tim, towards the cliff face. Their gaze settled on him warily.

Tim settled lightly on the shelf. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said to them, although he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to understand him. Regardless, he hoped his soft tone would help convey what he meant. The merperson just narrowed their eyes at him, but they stayed in place. 

Now that Tim was nearer to the Mer, he could see her face more clearly. She looked… young. Maybe not much older than Tim. She had long hair that flowed in dark golden tangles around her shoulders. Underneath the netting, he could see that she was wearing a shirt that looked almost like it was made of woven scales, long sleeved and knotted at the waist to hold it in place. He thought that it might be old and well worn, because there were holes in the fabric and the edges of the sleeves were ragged. It also looked too big, like she was wearing someone else’s clothes - a bit like Tim did when he was wearing one of Jason’s sweaters. 

He moved a little bit closer. “I can help you,” he said, trying to keep that same soft tone. He put a hand on his dive knife and immediately her face curled into a snarl. She had sharp teeth, Tim noticed nervously. “Whoa, no okay,” he backed away a little, lifting his hands away from the knife and over his head. “I don’t want to hurt you, I promise, I just want to cut you free.” 

Her expression settled back into a more thoughtful look, with wary eyes. Tim took the chance to swim further towards her, and settled onto his knees on the rock, barely a few feet away. “Can I cut you free?” he asked, letting his hand drift closer to his knife again.

The mermaid narrowed her eyes again, studying him. Then, to Tim’s surprise, she opened her mouth and spoke. The series of clicks and whistles was incomprehensible to him. 

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” She looked disappointed, but tried again. This time, she used sounds that were more like the verbal language Tim was familiar with, and to his shock it sounded strangely like he was hearing the words within his mind. But he still didn’t know what she meant, so he shook his head again.

The mermaid drew back a little bit and studied him further. Tim lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, frustrated and unsure how to get her to trust him. As he did, her eyes widened, and she jerked her chin sharply at his arm.

“You… want to see my arm?” Tim asked, baffled. The mermaid stared at him, and nodded sharply. “Wait, you can understand me?” She nodded again, and tilted her head at his arm, eyes fixed upon it. He cautiously extended it towards her and she leaned closer to look at it.

And then Tim realised she wasn't looking at his arm at all. She was looking at the charm on his wrist, as it shifted through its spectrum of ocean colours, dark ink to murky blue to turquoise to the colour of sunlit water near the surface. She stared at it for what felt like eternity, then lifted her eyes to meet Tim’s. A few seconds of staring, and then she broke their gaze to look down at Tim’s waist. Tim followed her gaze to the dive knife on his waist, and met her eyes again when she looked up.

“You’ll let me cut you free?” He asked her. She stared at him with unreadable violet-blue eyes and nodded slowly. Tim drew his knife, and slowly, carefully, cut the net away from her before putting his knife back away. He winced at the red marks left on her skin from where it had dug into her. As soon as the knife was gone, she gathered the net in her hands and swam to the cliff face to shove it into a crevice. When she was done, she glared at it. Maybe she was trying to stop it from tangling anyone else?

Somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t immediately swim away from him after she was done dealing with the net. Instead she reached out with her now-free arms and caught his wrist, pulling it closer to examine the charm. She lifted one finger to touch it lightly, and hummed. Then she narrowed her eyes in a look of concentration. A soft blue glow flashed where her finger rested on the charm, and Tim startled. She let go of his arm immediately, and stared at him, before opening her mouth and speaking again. This time, to Tim’s astonishment, he could hear her words inside his mind, and he could _understand her._

“Can you understand me now?” She asked, and Tim nodded with wide eyes. “Good.”

“How?” he blurted out. “How could you understand me before? How can I understand you now? How am I hearing you _in my head?_ ”

“There was a translation spell on your charm, but it only went one way. When you spoke, I heard your words in Atlantean in my mind. When I spoke, my words were not translated into your own language. A strange oversight.”

“That’s so weird,” Tim murmured. 

The mermaid gave him a close lipped smile. “Yes. My name is…” she let off a short series of clicks and whistles. Tim stared, baffled by how to try and pronounce that. She tilted her head back and let loose another series of clicks that Tim thought might be laughter. “Atlanteans can't say Mer names correctly, either. The translation of my name to their tongue would sound like Stephanie, or Steph for the shorter version.”

“That sounds like a human name!” Tim exclaimed, before realising he hadn’t introduced himself in turn. “Um, my name is Tim. Or, well, Timothy for the long version.” 

“Tim,” she mused, testing it. “Interesting.” 

"I didn't know there were more people in the ocean other than Atlanteans or selkies," Tim said curiously. Now that they weren’t pinned to the sides of her tail, her fins were even larger than Tim thought — they rippled delicately in the water, gleaming aubergine and amethyst. The glimmer of her scales and fins contrasted sharply with her ragged green clothing, and he wondered how long she had been tangled in that net. Were her clothes like this before, or did it add new tears to the material?

Steph laughed again in response to his comment. "Well then, you don't know much at all, do you?" She grinned at him. Her teeth really did look very sharp, but her eyes were friendly. "There are many different peoples in the ocean. There's even more than one kind of Mer. In fact, there's lots of kinds of Mer." She tilted her head, golden hair drifting gently with the movement, and looked at Tim's charm again. "Was that gift from a selkie?"

"Yeah, it was. How did you know?"

"You only know two groups of ocean peoples, and selkies are renowned for being one of the most secretive ocean peoples. So if you know about them at all, you’re probably close to them. Which would also explain the language problem with your charm, then. It likely wasn’t the point of the gift. It was intended to allow you to breathe in the ocean, right?” Tim nodded at her with furrowed brows, not understanding where this was going. Steph took a moment to settle on the rocks next to him, her aubergine tail curling beneath her and the amethyst tips of her fins just brushing his legs, before she spoke again. “They just used a translator charm as a means to let you speak and be heard underwater, rather than as a true translator. If they never expected you to meet anyone who wasn't a selkie, you wouldn't need to understand any of the ocean languages, anyway."

"But why would a mermaid be able to understand me?" Tim asked, puzzled. 

"We don’t use the term ‘mermaid.’ It’s just Mer,” Steph said sharply, and Tim nodded with an apologetic expression. She softened her tone as she continued. “And a lot of ocean peoples, selkies and Mer included, know Atlantean. Given that the Atlantean King does technically rule us, it became the most convenient language to know for trading and such. That makes it the easiest language for a translator to have used in order to allow you to be heard underwater, through the projection into their minds. And as an unintended side effect, it meant that I could understand you too," Steph explained, and then she snorted, a soft derisive sound in Tim’s mind. "As for why you can’t understand Selkie, well. Selkies are notoriously secretive about their own language. And for a translation charm to work, the spellcaster must have intent and know the languages they wish the spell to translate. Whoever cast the spell for your charm knew your land tongue and Atlantean, but not the selkie tongue.”

“Can selkies not cast translation spells, then? Also, wait. Why couldn’t I understand Atlantean before if the person who cast the spell knew Atlantean and English?” Tim frowned down at his charm. It looked the same as it always had, with its mesmerizing shifting of colours.

“Not usually. It’s very rare for a selkie to have magic,” Stephanie explained. “As for the other part, translators and selkies have a longstanding feud over selkie secrecy. The caster of the translator spell was likely being petty - you didn’t strictly _need_ to know Atlantean, since the selkies wouldn’t be able to talk to you in it anyway, while you were in the water. So they didn’t bother.” She rolled her eyes and curled her lips into a delicate sneer. Tim noticed that her pointed teeth made the expression more scary than he thought she meant it to be. “Lazy and petty, as I said.”

“So you could cast a translation spell on the charm for me, because you know Atlantean and wanted me to understand it? Or, wait, no. Do you know English?” Tim frowned, trying to puzzle out the logic, but the pieces weren’t fitting together.

“Not… quite. I know a few words.” She looked sheepish for a second, then smirked. “What I did was tap into the spell that was there and modify it a little bit so the magic flows as a loop, rather than just one way. I _wanted_ the spell to flow both ways, and so it did.”

“Really? That was all you had to do?”

“The foundation was already there,” she shrugged. “The translation charm already had both languages in it. I didn’t have to give it any knowledge, just intent.”

“That’s really cool,” Tim said in quiet awe. “Are all Mer able to do magic?” 

“Most can do a little bit. I’m good at any magic that really only requires intent, because I have both power and I’m really stubborn.” She grinned cheekily at him, laughter dancing in her eyes.

He laughed and repeated, “that’s so cool!” With all this new knowledge in his head, his mind started running at a million miles an hour. He had so many things he wanted to ask her, and he had no idea where to start.

But before he even got a chance, he was reminded that he had, in fact, snuck out of the house to go for a swim by himself. And he’d been gone far longer than he’d intended. Because that was definitely the Waynes speeding towards them.

The three of them arrived, and immediately they converged on Tim, nudging at him and trying to check if he was alright.

“I’m okay, guys, I’m fine, I promise,” he told them. Jason nudged at his face and then squinted at Steph. “I was just intending to go for a swim, but I ran into a Mer. This is Steph.” Jason just squinted at her some more. Bruce ignored him entirely and started trying to herd him back to the beach, which made Steph laugh at him.

“But wait! Will I be able to see you again?” Tim asked her. Bruce stopped herding him to look at her as well.

“I could come with you, if you’d like,” she offered. “I don’t have anything better to do, and you did help me.”

“How? We’re going back on land.”

“Remember how I said I was really good at intention magic? The ability to shift to legs requires only a _very_ strong intention, and a basic understanding of what legs are,” Steph grinned. “It’s like the best escape from any ocean predators or dangerous sea weather.”

Tim beamed at her, dodging Bruce to swim back to her side. “Awesome! Do you have to let anyone know you’re going somewhere?”

“Nope. I’ve lived on my own for a while. There’s no need.”

Bruce stared at her, somehow looking stunned. And then he looked at Dick, who swam to Tim’s side. Bruce then moved away from Tim to herd _Steph_ instead.

“Is he… herding me?” She asked, baffled.

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“He basically adopted me when he found out I was being left alone. Maybe he’s doing the same thing to you?”

Steph stared at Tim. Then turned around to stare at Bruce. “I am _not_ getting adopted by you.” Bruce paused to look at her, and then started herding her again. She squinted at him, but began to swim towards the beach. “I am _visiting_ for breakfast _only_.”

Tim laughed again. He knew Bruce was going to be upset about him sneaking out to swim alone once he’d shifted back, and Dick and Jay were going to fuss over him. But that was alright. He’d helped someone, made a new friend in the process, and learned that the world was even more interesting than he’d previously thought.

It was shaping up to be a pretty good day, overall.


End file.
